Menomonee Falls wrestlers win Greater Metro tourney title

Menomonee Falls wrestling coach Jim McMahon has developed the club team, he has searched every corner and hallway in the school, and he has attended countless youth tournaments.

And all for the moment that occured Friday night at Marquette, when his happy Indian team, fresh off winning a share of their first Greater Metro Conference title in seven years with the hard-won league tourney crown, called over the coaches and made sure that they were in the countless team pictures that were being taken.

"We have a really great group of kids," said McMahon, "and it's not just the 14 (on varsity). Great kids and great parents who have put a lot of energy and time into this. Club kids, kids from the hallways. It's a credit to all of them. Really a great credit."

The Indians picked up individual championships from Aaron Daly at 106 pounds, Bill Holz at 120, Casey Crangle at 126, Sam Schwabenlander at 145 and Ayoola Olapo at 182 en route to a title-earning total of 246.5 points.

West Allis Central was second with 218 and West Allis Hale, which beat the Indians last week for the GMC dual meet crown, was third with 204.

Falls' title had a strong foundation of 13 first-round victories or byes earned out of 14 weight classes, and reached its final peak with 11 wins out of 14 matches in the final round

Senior champions Schwabenlander and Olapo said the team was driven after that disappointing 40-25 dual meet loss to Hale in the Indians' own gym. They knew what had been lost and what could still be won.

"We just used that as fuel this week," said Olapo. "We had to show them (the rest of the conference) who the real champion was."

"It showed us to be a team that could bounce back from a tough loss," said Schwabenlander. "We tried to use it as a positive and make ourselves work harder."

Falls had initially bounced back from the Hale dual with a surprising championship in the Sheboygan South Redwing Duals last Saturday. It was part of a brutally difficult schedule that had the Indians going up to Merrill and to many other points hard and difficult around the state to get the best competition.

"Oh yeah," said Olapo. "It was like we were seeing ranked opponents back-to-back-to-back all the time. It's really helped us overcome a lot of things."

And why the Indians had nine individual places third or higher Friday night.

The individual champions were impressive, said McMahon. Highlighting them in his eyes was the effort of Schwabenlander, whom he said "Had the tournament of his life."

Another nice showing came from Daly, who after recording a technical fall over a West Allis Central opponent in the semifinals, beat Hale's James Baltz, 4-1, in the final. Daly had lost to Baltz in the dual just last week.

Holz had little trouble recording his second conference title with pins of Hale (1:42) and Marquette (2:47) opponents.

Crangle remained steady as a rock for the Indians, earning decisions over Hale (11-5), Sussex Hamilton (7-4) and Brookfield Central (7-3) opponents en route to his crown.

Olapo pinned a Sussex Hamilton opponent (1:18) before winning by injury default over a Hale foe.

Those champions got help in the form of runner-up finishes from Jerott Holz at 113, Jake Fuiten at 170 and Trayvon Handy at 285. In addition, James Dow was third at 195.

McMahon was very happy for the six seniors who were on varsity at one point or another this winter, including Schwabenlander, Olapo, Austin Meyers at 138, Jon Haririe at 152, Alex Koch at 160 and Matt Aili at 220.

Schwabenlander feels that his class will leave a strong legacy for the others to follow.

"The younger guys gained a lot of good experience this year," he said. "It was the first time for all of us to be on a really good team. Those guys coming back will look back on this and try to do what we did."

Which would please McMahon endlessly.

"I'm just happy for the kids," he said. "We controlled the things we could control like the amount of work we put in and just kept plugging along. Eventually, good things did happen to us."

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